We’ll leave aside that when there have been opioid / heroin epidemics in the past which have only impacted poor populations and People of Color, that the outcry from the White House has not been “We must do something to cure these poor beknighted souls” but “We must declare a War on Drugs and lock up all those evil drug-takers!”
No, instead let us revel in something that’s the most genuinely political thing that Trump has done since assuming office, and the closest he’s gotten to authentically invoking the spirit of St Ronald Reagan. After referring to the opioid crisis as a “national emergency” some months back, but never doing anything about it then, he’s now declared it a “public health emergency” and signed a bunch of paperwork that doesn’t require spending any more money, but does let him piously declare that better Public Service Announcements would help kids say “No” to drugs.
Of course, a lot of folk swept up in the opioid crisis aren’t kids, but God forbid that there be any actual, concrete, considered policy behind this, aside from the policies of “look Presidential” and “don’t do anything that might cost tax money”.
Originally shared by +Doyce Testerman:
o_o
After months of promises, Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency today – not a national emergency, which would have unlocked federal funding through FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund. Under the Public Health Services Act designation, no federal funding will be automatically directed to the crisis. Federal agencies will, however, be directed to devote more grant money to the problem. Jeff Sessions said that people should just “say no” to opioids while Trump suggested that “really great advertising” will keep kids off drugs.
Trump declares opioid epidemic a public health emergency – CNNPolitics
President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency on Thursday, telling an audience in the East Room of the White House that “we can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic.”
Hopefully they'll just save money and just keep playing the old ads from the 80s, or just post pictures of Nancy Reagan sitting on Mr. T's lap.